


The Undiscovered Country.

by unusquisque



Category: Alain Johns - Fandom, Existential crisis - Fandom, Roland Deschain - Fandom, The Dark Tower, children - Fandom, multiversal
Genre: Gen, Unbeta'd, say sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:29:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1202911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unusquisque/pseuds/unusquisque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,<br/>When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,<br/>Must give us pause. There's the respect<br/>That makes Calamity of so long life?<br/>- Hamlet</p>
<p>Or. They know not what they do or what they truly are. But others do, in the dead of night that they cannot dream of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Undiscovered Country.

There is a particular ritual among the Manni to children born with the touch of other worlds. They seek amid their wisdoms and palaver the return of such a man as one who led them once upon a time. Some will tell you it is the man jesus come again (say thankya.) Some will tell you a king, a red and terrible king. Some will say it is a gunslinger.

They do not know. They simply summon each child on the eve of their 6th birthday.

Those who do not come are not _hurt_. But they come anyway. They are drawn as it were, like the salmon swimming upstream. _Come_ , nature whispers, _Come know secrets, come know deep truths. Come like those that have come before you, those that will come after. Come for life, the only force in the universe that will never stop._

It is odd, that no parent has ever thought to say _no_.  
\---

Save for Christopher Johns. Even then however he is burdened. It's mostly his son's unhappy face. six is the month that they begin training and honing to the path of the gun. Boys bid goodbye to childhood with gifts. Cuthbert has a new pony. Roland a small hawk. And Alain.

He stands with his wife as Anne raises a hand to their son, striding forward to kiss his hands, "Go well and be at peace."

Alain looked like he wanted to cry, "I don't wanna."

"Go and remember my face." He did his best to keep his eyes away from the Manni holy-man. His beard trailed to the ground, his features gaunt beneath it's (it was not a man, he could not think of it as _man_.) "Go with my love."

"Yes father."

He gripped Anne tightly around the waist, watching them go. "...He has to go?"

"He has a gift." Her lips curved in a smile, "It's not something that Cort can understand or Vannay can teach. Believe me I have no love for my father's people any more then thee gunslinger, but..."

That strange little smile, "You can't stop life. It flows."

"So you say."

"He'll be fine."  
\----

Twenty days. Twenty days, 19 nights.

Both parents sleep uneasily and sometimes Christopher Johns thinks that he sees Roland and Bert cresting the battlements looking to see their friend return. On the 20th day - fresh in the morning a guard cries "approaching! approaching the gate!" and he and Anne are out to see their son sitting on a horse and staring straight ahead.

Alain looked well. A little pale, perhaps a shade thinner then he had been (But he ran to stout himself, thought Johns, and that was no prize.) but he smiled and scrambled off his horse, offering a hug for his mother and a bow and then a hug for his father. Reunions are sweet but all have them, they do not need to be recounted. 

What must be noted however, or what Christopher Johns noted was the way his son stiffened when he walked up the steps to the great hall, stared down at the kitchens and the way he glanced through everything. As if it were new.

At dinner that night, he learned the intricate nature of the ritual. The manni knew that the one they sought would have a dream for each night they spent praying and fasting. He would walk through the doors to other worlds and see wonders. Many saw wonders (his own wife had seen five apparently.) 

"How many did you dream?"

Alain stopped, "Nine."

Her eyes widened, "That's very good Alain, very good. You must have a gift. A book I think. It is tradition."

"Yes mama."

"What did you dream?" Christopher couldn't help himself. His wooden trencher was filled with beef cutlets (good beef.) knife suspended halfway to his mouth, "...Were they...good dreams?"

Alain stared straight ahead, "Some."

"Like what?"

"Christopher."

"No no." Alain drew in a deep breath, "...I dreamed. Four nights in...I dreamed of a ring." He speaks and his voice falls into a cadence, a motion. Rises and falls like the tides, or like the song of a storyteller.

_He stands in darkness. What gets him is the sense of space around him. Vast yes, but there is heat. Warmth and heat surrounding him. He can't see and he wants to cry out -_

_Save for the admonishment of his father. **Remember my face**_

It's at that thought that he sees it. It hangs in the dark. Is it a door? Is he to go through or was that passage there, round and warm -   
(In a hole. In the ground.)  
No. 

This is not that door. It is an object. Indeed it is a ring.

Here Alain paused to take in a gulp of water, "It was beautiful father." Anne thought his eyes shone with something like lust, "It was the most beautiful ring I ever saw."

_It is ahead of him. Tantalizing. Like the women he will someday see (life does not stop.) He moves with a pulse. His heart rate quickens. His throat dries. He begins to run for it. Faster and faster._

_And indeed in the dark the ring twinkles above him. As he crawls closer he begins to hear whispers. Terrible whispers._

The great hall of Gilead went Silent as Alain spoke the words, "Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul. Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul."

Gabrielle Deschain, floors above them drew a sign against evil in the air. Steven Deschain, talking with Allgood drank his beer in a sudden motion causing it to nearly spill.

In a tower room, Marten Broadcloak opened his eyes and peered around.

"Nah. He's not here."

And fell back asleep contented.

"Never say that again." Anne Johns murmured, "If you do I shall beat you Alain. Do you hear? Never _ever_ -"

"The hawk said so too mama."

"The hawk?"

_"None of that now." His quest for the ring is impeded. There are wings buffering him. Great wings and he thinks it's the eagle, the beam but the voice has a lilting quality, "That's not for him you idiot. Stop drawing others to places they have no place in. Grim fool."_

_In the dark, in the heat, sits a bird._

_"Your pardon sai. It was pretty."_

_"It is pretty. Pretty and dangerous. beauty masks deadly things my boy. Remember that well." The hawk ruffled it's feathers, "But my you are far from home. Though perhaps not as far as you might think. What brings you here?"_

_Alain could think of nothing to say. So instead he shrugged._

_"Exploring? Boys like to explore. I remember that well." The bird looked back towards the ring, "It is that which drives them towards the ring. Towards the green light. Towards light. Remember that little explorer. all things find the light in time, but to get there they must pass through deepest darkness."_

_"Yes sai." a thought occurs to him, "Sai...are you maerlyn?"_

_The bird blinks, "..No! No no. Heavens no. Though we could perhaps be friends. The sort of man who would smoke a pipe with me. Or sit and have great discussions. Or perhaps the sort of man I would bring down as is my duty." There was a power in the bird's words then, "No. Thee may call me...Grey. For my name is my own and for my world and those under my care."_

_"Ah."_

_"Indeed."_

_"What...what was it?"_

_"That? A ring of great power. Empires rise and fall upon it. It was made to rule, and not to rule well. To rule...as you might say. In the white. Do you understand?"_

_Alain nods. He thinks he does, but the bird chuckles and flaps to his shoulder, "Never mind that or this. Walk with me to your door little dreamer. Dawn rises in your world, and I have quests to attend to."_

_"A king should take it." He could not get the ring out of his mind, "A great king. My friend Roland-"_

_But his mind drops back. What had the bird said? It does not rule in the white._

_"Take this with thee lad." The bird nips at his ear, "Kings are men. They have fancy titles but in the end they must earn their seat, and prove themselves worthy of the trust of their people. This is what no man has ever understood and perhaps no man will. To lead, to truly lead, they must give all they have. They must earn their birthright, acknowledge that they are but servants to a higher power."_

_"What higher power?"_

_"I begin to see the path you are on." the bird murmured. They had come to a warm circular wooden door (a hole, in the ground, there lived a hobbit.) "Remember my words if you can!"_

"And that was it." Alain said, "I woke up."

"Rings and talking birds and what did you call them? Bobbits? What next?"

"There was a ship crewed by rabbits and mice and rats. There was a world on a turtle on the back of six elephants..."

" _Children's stories!_ " Johns shook his head, "This is what we sent him away for?"

"There was another!" Alain cried, "Another. Another darker dream." He swallowed, "And they called me by name."

_Indeed it does call him by name. Only instead of a bird it is a frog in a tomb. A tomb he knows (though he could not have said why.)_

_"Wandered far, you have." the frog says, "A quest you are on?"_

_"Fancy that!" The rabbits were kind and the turtle had a beautiful library with a funny librarian covered in fur, "A talking frog!"_

_"Frog am I? hm? No frog. No. Perhaps once. Perhaps we all. All things start small. All things start from nothing yes? Hmm." The frog hopped off it's perch, "Come. Yes. Much to see. No time to see it in. Unless you see all. Do you see all Alain Christopher's son?"_

_"That's not how we say it. You speak oddly sai frog."_

_"Odd am I!" The frog laughed, "Odd. Yes. all say that. and were you to read me in a book yes, you would read it in a voice that understand, you do not. Yes?"_

_He wondered if the frog was making fun of him, "Show me. Show me what you would show me."_

_The frog mutters to itself as it leads him down. Down deep. Deep where the moss creeps and the fog rolls in through the earth._

_"Afraid you are."_

_"N-no."_

_"Afraid you must not be. For you gunslinger, my words. Take heed yes?"_

_"H-How did you know..."_

_"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Much we say it, know we what it means?"_

_The frog stops before an empty space, "Behold."_

_Alain saw them. Nine knights entombed in robes of brown. Robes of state. At their breasts were swords of light. They shone like the sun. (Is that where we are? Because I'd swear, that one at the forefront...)_

_"Like your friend he looks hm? Yes. The jaw it is. Look alike, all heroes do when they are dead."_

_"Arthur! Arthur of the Eld?"_

_"Many names he has." The frog waved it's hand, "Closely. Watch closely."_

_He has a sense then, a sense that what once was begun noble had fallen into ruin. Indeed the light from the swords at their breasts never faded but the tombed men began to rot. Sores opened in flesh and left rotting pus upon the floor. A smell assailed him and the boy stepped back, rotting flesh and maggots and their flies - buzzing flies. (Noble and fallen into ruin. The fate of any who sets themselves above the whole.) flesh falls from bone, fingers cracking. Centuries pass before the bodies crumble to dust._

_The swords remain._

_"Noble ideals. Such noble ideals. All start out well. Test us, time does. A frog becomes a master becomes a frog again yes? hmm hmm!"_

_"I don't want to call you a frog." Alain looks to him, "...I want to call you something else."_

_"A dreamer he is! Wise he is. Sees far he does. But come. Look. See well!"_

_Nine swords burn in the darkness. Alain reaches for one, not the first (never the first) and it makes a woosh like the wind when he picks it up. It feels...right in his hand in a way that he cannot explain._

_"Across time and space and spanning the centuries." The frog's voice is softer now, crooning, "There is a constant. Men want protection, they dream of being so strong and swift and fierce that no man may touch them, no woman may take their hearts. They dream of keeping all safe. It is not evil no, no. It becomes evil, because they become afraid to change."_

_The frog stares at him, "My words for you dreamer. Yes? Come through the door? Change. Change leads to growth, growth leads to joy. Joy leads to life, and all prosper and the tower shall heal again."_

_"I know what I want to call you." Alain bursts out, dropping the sword, "You're a Mup-"_  
\---

"And I was gone." Alain ate a piece of bread, "I went to the ice next. I spoke with Aslan. He wept."

Christopher Johns wondered if his son was drunk or mad, "...Alain, Aslan the beam."

"Oh yes! he was very nice." He finished the bread, "I even made a friend!"

"A friend."  
\----  
 _It is a friend. At least he thinks it's a friend. This door is cold and made of ice and there is someone waiting for him when he stops. A wolf. A monsterous wolf as big as he is and Alain's first instinct is to fall back and go for guns that aren't there..._

_"That's all right. Please don't. I heard you. I'm here to help."_

_"I can hear you! Inside of my head I can here you are you..."_

_"I'm Bran Stark. Of Winterfell."_

_"Alain. Son of Christopher of Gilead."_

_he sensed the wolf was young. Young and wise, "...I've opened lots of doors."_

_"I know. I heard you. I didn't think you'd come here. Not many like us I think." The wolf nodded, "Are you cold? Hungry?"_

_"Cold some."_

_"You get used to it. It should be odd but I've never ranged as far as your world. Is it nice?"_

_They talk for hours. The boy from Gilead and the boy from Westeros. They weep for each other's shared sorrows. He tells him of the ring and his friends and Roland his king and the tower, the tower at the center of all things._

_"Sometimes I think the tower sends us. Sent me. I dreamt of a wolf and came to the door as fast as I could. It had something it wanted me to show you."_

_"Show me?"_

_"Yes. Though I can't think why you'd want to see it. My world has... it is dying I think."_

_"So's mine!"_

_They crest a hill and the wind blows cold, but the valley below them fills with golden light. Bright light. Brilliant light and alain can see fish and bears and animals and in the center of them all an egg._

_Until then he would have said that the ring was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen but now it is the egg. The lion bats at it with a paw, a bear swats at it while it nests in a bed of golden roses (golden roses!)_

_"Can you feel it?" the wolf boy whispers. The prince whispers. And Alain imagines that he can. A current of power, "It's been so cold. It's been so cold, and cold is a life of it's own but there's balance. Do you see? One gives way to the other and so we live. A flower that dies in the frost nourishes the ones that come after."_

_"Bran you're not making any sen-"_

_He gets no further as the egg cracks and Alain's world is bathed in fire._

_A dragon. A glorious three headed dragon shakes off jeweled bits of shell and belches fire and flame to the heavens. He can see the snow melt then, rivers running and flowers, the most beautiful flowers._

_The wolf boy says no more. His head is bowed._

_Indeed all the animals heads are bowed (like something else.) alain's eyes are open as the dragon approaches with a great gust of wings._

_"Greetings little traveler."_

_Upon the back of the dragon he saw a woman. And in her brow he saw something of the Eld as well (How many gillies did he have?) and something of Roland too._

_"Greetings my lady."_

_"Do you see the lesson we have for you?"_

_"Dragons are beautiful?"_

_The three headed dragon roars it's delight and the girl (she is little more then a girl) laughs, "Give less and give more little boy. Gunslinger. Ser in my tongue. There is balance in all things. Destiny is a wheel. Do you see?"_

It was not long before Christopher quit the table. Alain fell silent before looking to his mother who put a hand on his brow, "He does not believe." 

It is later after she settles him in his room, "Mama I dreamed two more dreams."

"The last were the worst?"

He can't speak. 

"And you would tell me?" She smoothed her skirts and alain thought he detected a hunger in her gaze, "Tell me. Alain. Tell me the last two dreams."  
\---

_His head is full of dragons and wolves and eagles and rings. His mind bursts with frogs and wizards and quests. It's almost like a story he thinks. The best story. So when the next dream comes and a door opens in his mind he does not expect a house._

_No. He does not expect a house. A two story colonial house thank you very much with dark brown trim and roses - dying roses climbing up the windows. They're dying because Millie planted a second plant at the base and they're choking the life out of each other. People forget that roses are dangerous. That flowers are just as dangerous as people. They also tend to forget the rose is the national flower of the united states. How fitting. Beauty and thorns._

_But alain does not know what these words mean. He doesn't understand as his feet creep closer and closer to another door. Dark brown wood with the words "Found" in high speech carved upon it's base (it was just a pretty fucking door.) and glass._

_There are whispers here too._

_There are whispers here made louder by the clap of thunder off the porch and the sudden torrential rain off the porch light. They whisper names. (titles, his mind says. and he does not know why.) abbatoir, the last house on the left, the amityville horror, the people under the stairs..._

_(Did you think this would have a happy ending kid?)_

_He wants to throw up but he must go inside. And when he opens the door he wants to throw up more for the house _stinks__

_Worse then rotting corpses. Worse then lions tears. Worse then all of that. It is a sick smell of something like piss or maybe failure._

_that's it. Failure. But it's not the smell that gets to him the most, no it's the sound track. It's the knowledge that all of the pictures in the house are broken. This is a house filled with suffering and to accompany it like some twisted alternative composure's idea of a joke is a man screaming._

_He thinks it's a man at least._

_He takes the steps one at a time. Past photographs. Past tossed books. Past dead soldiers. Is that dread creeping up his spine or artificially manufactured terror? He can hear his heart beating._

_The whispers get worse. The conjuring. Exorcist. Insidious one and two..._

_Places he does not want to go. Doors he does not want to open. He has problems of his own can't they see that? Can't they see-_

_He sees nothing because that's the moment the monster in all of those movies appears, in all of those stories. It's tall and thin, pallid even but it has no eyes. It has no eyes at all just blank holes. It has a nose, and ears, but no eyes. It sees nothing  
(It sees things that are far away.)_

_"Get away! Don't think I don't know you're there you little shit! Get back! Get back! Get...oh what's the use?"_

_The monster collapses and begins to sob, "...Jesus what's the use? I can't make it stop. Take whatever you want."_

_"I didn't come for anything." Alain backs up, "...I didn't...I-I-"_

_"you wanna laugh? Come on then. Laugh." the monster lunges at him, "Fucking laugh!"_

_"I won't laugh if you won't yell!"_

_The man turned his head away, "I can't get it to stop. They talk, all the time. Nothing quiets it. There's nothing. No drink, no drunk. No drug. No sex. Nothing. I just hear them in my head. Talking, talking, always talking and playing that loud damn music..."_

_Alain is watching intent when the whispers grow loud and the man pulsates. His head roses and falls like a boil, like a breath. A balloon, a squeezed toy._

_"You see? You see how bad it gets?!"_

_"...You have a demon in you." The boy says. And it sounds like the soldier he will one day be, "but fear not. I can remove it."_

_"...You can?"_

_"...yes." He frowns, "Go lie down." In this house that stinks of failure. Is the man going to die?  
(he's only six years old he can't condemn a man to death.)_

_"I just want them to stop talking." The man weeps. He lays on the bed, arms spread. above him is the cross of the man jesus (say thankya) and the man mirrors his pose to the letter, "God help me, I just want them to stop. You ever have that?"_

_No. He hasn't. In fact he has never thought of a story before. He listens but to think of one..._

_Something about that is important. It is the most important thing at all and it draws his eye like a beam to a paperweight on the man's desk. A huge heavy rock. Something about that makes him angry. He could make up a million stories. He could make up two or three or five. But no._

_He doesn't._

_The man is lying silent as a crucified christ and when Alain looks at him there is blood trailing from the sockets where his eyes should be._

_"Am I going to die?"  
(We're all going to die someday.)_

_"No."  
(The question is will you be remembered. For in being remembered there is it's own immortality._

_Marilyn Monroe's movies may burn, but those damn handbags covered with jewels will survive._

_Spread your seed. Plant flowers to make a garden. Leave your mark upon the earth or truly be dust.)_

_alain brings the rock down on the man's head as hard as he can.  
(To dust.)_

_The whispers become screams. He is driven by a fury, his father's fury, his friend's fury. Oh the anger he has within him. it is a fire and he fans it's flames at the man lying on the bed. Howling he takes the sharp edge of the rock (was it always sharp?) and slams it into the man's skull. His knees soak with blood and his hands are becoming bruised but the man has stopped screaming. He will feel his fury. (It's not me.) He will feel his anger. (It is me. Why is it me?) And not just for him, but for Bran and the dragon girl and all the others this man - this man will pay because he cannot have the ring in the darkness.  
(It's me! It's always me it's never you. Why? What makes you so special?)_

_He is soaked in gore, bits of brain and fury. Alain crawls away from the dead god on the bed, it's judging sockets and curls up on the floor to sleep._  
\---

At this point his mother hugged him tight to her chest.

"say on lad."  
\---

_He hears it. A squelch. Does the corpse rise in horror? Is judgement day at hand?_

_No._

_Alain shivers unconsciously and turns. The blood has dried in his hair and in his hands across his face (Carrie. funny.) but who's Carrie, and who is the man on the bed and what are those white things coming out of the ruins of his head?_

_delicate and gentle. Tendrils? he thinks? Tentacles? The demon? No. They're fingers. white fingers. his gaze strays to the wall and he knows the painting on it (Athena being born from Zeus's brow.) and that - that is what is happening here._

_Oh but it's disgusting though. First there are fingers, then a head. It's birth he thinks. How do women bear it? How do they bear it indeed?_

_When the eyes perch over the ruin of the dead man's skull he bolts. He jogs to the closet and listens to the noises. Squelch, Squish. Tug. Rip. Tear. blorp. He's either eating or giving birth and Alain Johns wonders if he's going mad._

_when there's silence at last he debates for what feels like hours before his father swims before him and he opens the door and stares out at them._

_Good god there are more._

_The woman wears meijis dress (how does he know that?) her face is a painted skull with bright eyes and thick lips. She wears flowers in her hair that are slick and stained with blood._

_In one hand she holds a knife._

_In another she holds the hand of a girl about his age, ordinary with curls in her hair and a cat on her shirt. the cat is soaked in blood._

_Behind them stands a man in blue and Alain knows what's on his hip. A gun. And on his chest, a badge._

_The three stare at him._

_He stares back._

_And the body judges them all, it's head almost completely gone._

_"H-Hi-Long d-days and pleasant nights."_

_It's not the gore he will remember that will haunt him. It's the faces. The pallid pasty faces. And the eyes. They have no eyes either - or they may as well. There is no humanity behind them._

_"Who are you?"_

_The girl's voice is soft and clipped, the voice of a child._

_"Alain." no son. He is in the presence of something too powerful to cling to blood (a man must earn his blood.)_

_"Who am I?"_

_"That is a good question." The woman holding her hand said, "I would like to know this too. I would also like to know what this is." She held up the knife, "It feels as if I have forgotten."_

_"Yes." the girl said, "It seems important. I had something to do..." her voice trailed off, "...I can't remember. I can't remember what I had to do! I can't remember why I'm here!"_

_Panic crept into her voice and she threw the woman's hand aside, leaping for Alain, "What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do for godsake!? Tell me! Tell me please! I knew why I was here but it fades, it fades and I...I..."_

_She began to cry. The blood ran from her face and alain unconsciously put an arm around her, "I don't know."_

_"Well what are you supposed to do?!"_

_"I don't know either!" She questioned his very being and he shrank away._

_"he knows." The man in blue's voice was cold, "He must know. And I'll make him tell me. I can do that because I'm...I'm..." he plucked the badge off his chest, "Please! No. Police. Pole. Ice."_

_"That's not right." the woman murmured, "Police. Not pole ice."_

_"Well how am I supposed to know that!"_

_The girl continued to cry and Alain began to sniffle too. The wails and the stress, the kill drying on his hands. He looked to the bed, to the motionless corpse as the adults began to argue, rising in his head, loudly, loudly the voices came -_

_**STOP**._

_The corpse sat up._

_Brain dripped down it's chest, it's eyes and mouth destroyed. The room was a birth scene from hell..._

_And they knelt. They knelt! They **knelt** before the ressurection and the life. Alain backed against the wall._

_**GO NOW. YOU WILL KNOW WHAT YOU MUST DO.** _

_the man and the woman rose, walking to the door. The words on it said Unfound  
(Every new story is unfound. Every new world.)_

_The girl lingered, "what about him?"_

_**HIS STORY IS ALREADY TOLD.** _

_The girl gave him a small wave before she tugged on the door laughing and vanished in a beam of light._

_**I GUESS INSPIRATION STRUCK. GET IT?** _

_"N-No." Alain lowered his gaze, "Who are you?"_

_**I AM THE BEGINNING AND THE END OF EVERY STORY."** _

_"I don't understand." he wailed, "I don't understand!"_

_"You will."_  
\----

Anne lowered her gaze, "And do you?"

"I do now. But mama the last dream!-"

"Never tell the last dream. Never tell it to anyone Alain. As you love me and for your father's sake. Never speak of it. It must be held to your heart. It is the one that holds the most power."

He slumped, "Yes mama."

"The rest however." he felt his mother's cooling touch, "Be at ease and sleep well my love."

She kissed his brow and left him, and when he closed his eyes it was there. burned into him.

\-----

_For in his dreams he flew._

_He did not have wings. No. The eagle beneath him did. It was glorious and the world was spread out before him like a blanket of jewels._

_And it was bathed in the white._

_All of it was bathed in the white, even the darkest parts of gray. Perhaps in the distance there were spots of black but they were brief, and he paid no attention to them for the colors. Ahh the colors!_

_Places came to mind as he flew (England, there is England.) and flapped (France. See the Eiffel tower?) like something out of a story. He flew over China, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise and horses galloped across grassy planes. He watched fishermen draw up nets and argue over whales and he raced dolphins and cruise ships. He even waved to the rats (the rats eat the mens.)_

_He flew higher, reading the world like a sentence in a book. He flew over ancient Rome where ghostly gladiators battled in the sand. He watched television crews drive across the Sahara (someday it will grow green again. It's only a dry spell. All things change in time.). He raced wolves and bears in Russia and at last he came to the period. **America**._

_All that the blanket had been was finished here, made grander. Made bigger. He watched as children danced in a castle made of dreams where every girl was a princess and every boy a pirate (and perhaps a few of the adults as well) He watched men and women wrangle werewolves and laugh with them, clapping them on the shoulder. He watched demons kiss humans and take off their makeup and still he flew._

_He drank it in. Horses running across purple mountains majesty, a thousand doors, a million, a world full of limitless possibility. To go anywhere! To do anything!_

_Yet he did not fail to note, with a certain stab of pity how bogged they seemed to be. Most stared listlessly at tiny squares in their hands playing with jewels that were not there. Most clicked controllers with people who did not exist on their level of the tower. There were some who did not even like themselves and slipped their skin of a night to be something more._

_How could they? Could they not see the wind and the rain? Feel the heat of the world about them? He gave the bird it's head and tried to ride the tendrils of life that fled through them, that throbbed through them. A magic they reached only at a few moments in life._

_He saw them. The birth of a child. The joy of a holiday. A little girl danced in front of fire crackers and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. People wept and were moved before dancers and he wept with them. The eagle flew farther and he wondered how the majority of them could be sad with such possibility._

_At last he landed in a city of the gods._

_He waved to the eagle as it flew away and found himself at the edge of a yellow path. He'd been here before. Choked with weeds. He'd been here before hadn't he? Hadn't he?_

_And there! There was Roland his friend. only had he always been so old? So careworn? And who were those beside him? A bumbler sure, but who was the boy who was older then he? And the woman in the torture chair?_

_"Hile Roland." What has broken thee so?  
(A bashed skull in a darkened room. A monster lying like a god. Who gave you the right? Who gave you the right to do this to me? Kill your darlings? What about when we kill you back you sick fuck?)_

_"Alain. See here comes Alain. And others too."_

_Some came by eagle and some came by horseback and some drove but he saw them and he knew they were the same as he was. As they were. Roland might be old, but they were still the same. That cord ran through them. He saw werewolves and gunslingers (thousands of gunslingers), police and fire, a boy with a bright yellow dog. There was a girl in a purple dress with the longest hair he'd ever seen and two more, one ice and one fire, one looking wary the other excited._

_And with them came others that his mind put a name to. They stood. They all stood at the edge of the path, man and monster and demon and dog and god alike..._

_Until they heard the shouts._

_It was a man on a horse. That alain knew. (Himself? perhaps.) older and galloping._

_Roaring._

_"Run! Run for godsake! They come! They come again! Run all of you!"_

_It was enough. Alain began to run, keeping up with Roland (somehow) keeping up with Roland's Ka-tet (he put names to them.)_

_"Anyone know what we're running from?" A blonde man, unusually small and stunted (mutant? no. they call him something else) "I mean, I'm not built for this."_

_"Don't look back." a red headed woman dressed in black with a business like air about her continued to keep an easy pace, "If you value your life do not look back."_

_They kept running. Greek gods and faded creatures, a girl with red ruby slippers. Many rolled. When Alain looked up he realized that some flew. A man in blue and white and yellow smiled down on him before speeding away. Another all in green flew forward. And one in blue and red swung from the trees._

_"Who are they Roland?"  
(Why me! why is it always me! Why not you you bastard!)_

_"Just run!"_

_and so they did. A few aimed blasts back at them and to Alain's mind he began to hear snarling. Sneezing, growling and coughing and wailing, begging most of all. His breath burned in his lungs and his heart was fire in his chest as he leapt ahead and stopped._

_A clearing lay at the end of the path. A clearing lay there, sweet with water and trees and a moon filled sky-_

_"Stop!" he tugged at Roland's arm, "Stop Roland stop if we go any farther we die."_

_The line passed through them and Roland Deschain, son of kings stood up, "Stop! Stop for your father's sakes!"_

_Some shouted back curses and jokes but gradually they all stopped. The city of the gods pressed around them._

_"We can go no further."_

_"balls to that!"_

_"They come."_

_"Let them come." the ice princess said, "We will fight."_

_"Elsa _no!_ "_

_"Look!" A boy shouted, "Look!"_

_A thousand guns were trained. A thousand weapons aimed. More then that, a sea of people stood before them and split, so that the monsters could creep up to his door.  
(How cliche.)_

_They were wolves._

_Alain thought he heard a girl breath "muttations" before she re-notched an arrow to her bowstring._

_It seemed appropriate._

_At the head of the pack was a massive thing. Sores clustered at it's snout, it's teeth impossibly long and cutting upon it's lip. The tips forever red. It's arms were massive and it's hair was corse and matted with sweat. Below that it's manhood hung, thick and passive and heavy. It's balls too were covered with sores and it reeked of that same sense of piss and failure that the eyeless thing in the house had before it died._

_"Monsters."_

_"We have to kill them." the redheaded woman drew her gun. Beside her a man with a metal arm raised his fist, "We have to kill them all."_

_behind the brown beast was a female, it's dugs hung heavy at it's breast and blood ran down it's wrist and arms. It panted, snarling at him. Snarling at all of them._

_"There are _thousands_."_

_"I don't have enough bullets!"_

_"For Chrissake who are they? What are they?"_

_"Roland."_

_Alain turned to the boy who looked back at him, who saw him across time and space._

_"All things serve the beam."_

_All things. Even these poor bastards, these monsters. For who could show compassion and mercy better then they? (Because we see. alain thought. We see what they have. Lust after it even but they? They see only us and think it's best to be. We each see what the other wants but they....they...)_

_Roland raised a hand to the lead wolf, "Come no further. Come no further for your maker's sake."_

_Not father. _Maker_. The wolf roared and jumped - leaping onto Roland's outstretched palm._

_All at once his friend withdrew and the wolf looked kicked. It threw back it's hideous snout and screamed._

_The scream of a man._

_The pack backed up A few stared at him as the wolf contorted. It's head bent and bowed, the sores near it's cock burst. It's screams became more and more human as the hair receded and the pus ran over him, turning it's skin to white._

_Pasty white._

_Human white._

_After an eternity (but what is time.) it stood up on it's hind legs, paws gone, snout a nose and looked to Roland - shocked and weeping._

_"Well hell." the dwarf muttered, "If it's that easy. Come here bitch." He planted a kiss firmly on the only teat of the blonde wolf he could reach. She shrieked._

_"touch them!" a voice cried, "It...It..."_

_"Breaks the spell." It was the princess. The princess with blonde hair. And each one moved through the crowd slowly, ever so slowly. A few tried to run but most sat docile and waited until hands were laid upon them and they were re-baptized._

_Alain watched a mouse dance through wolves, tapping it's fingers. The ice princess raised her hands and blew a collection of pups a kiss. One werewolf met another and hugged it, only to have the second rear back screaming._

_"I feel there's something to be said here." Said a man in a blue flying box, "But I can't quite grasp the meaning."_

_"It's like you knew." Alain called up, "You knew and then you forgot years ago but remembered who you were?"_

_"Yes! Exactly! What a wonderful conundrum."_

_"You."_

_The wolves were humans. Naked humans sharing hugs and collecting children. Roland turned, Alain and his ka-tet behind him as something - someone approached._

_The wolf from before was still naked. It's manhood was no longer obscene and it looked instead like a middle aged man. Somehow it had produced a pair of spectacles that sat on it's nose._

_"You son of a bitch."_

_Alain didn't know to laugh or cry as the naked man wrapped it's arms around Roland. Holding him tight._

_"You son of a bitch! I remember! I remember. God it's hard you know? I work day in and day out and it feels like no one supports me. I know it came out bad but I remember, I remember how you kept going. So I went home and picked it up to remind myself to keep going. and I did."_

_The man was weeping, Alain saw, "I kept going. I kept going you bastard. Bless you. Bless you you old ugly son of a bitch. You kept me going. Your sense of honor. **Thank you**."_

_The wolf with it's dugs hung low was a girl, rubbing her wrists._

_"Sometimes. My job. It gets so hard, day in and day out and I wonder if it has any meaning. I think about it then." The girl was crying in full, staring at the dwarf, "I think about just letting it go away. Letting it die. dying. But I can't die can I? Your last book's not out. I have to see it. I have to know how it ends. It ends good right?"_

_"Fair lady." And she was fair, in a wild sort of way. Alain watched the dwarf take her hand and kiss it, "It is an honor to tell you our story. An honor to keep you to our story. It is no story, unless you are alive to hear it."_

_"Rapunzel!"_

_Ten small children, boys and girls ran for the princess with the long hair. The same words on every lips, wolf to man, monster to creation. (Remember, all things must pass through the darkness to get to the light.)_

_"You keep me going."_  
"I loved it."  
"I need you."  
"It was good."  
"Inspiring."  
"I love you." 

_**DO YOU SEE?** _

_Alain knew then, in the dream as some do, that it was not the beam that spoke to him. He felt himself grow weary, "They can't see what's in front of them?"_

_"No."_

_"So we see it for them."_

_**AND THEY IN TURN, MAKE YOU IMMORTAL.** it was Aslan and all his friends, **MANY OF THEIR LIVES SHALL BE DUST, BUT THAT DUST SHALL NOURISH FLOWERS. KA IS A WHEEL ALAIN, A WHEEL THAT TOUCHES MANY WORLDS.**_

_"I hate them."_

_**DO YOU NOT THINK.** god said **THEY HATE THEMSELVES ENOUGH?** and Alain remembered flying over the land and seeing the rare moments of joy amid a sea of nothing, and saw that it was true._

_"So you can love them too?"_

_**I WOULD NOT GIVE THEM A TORCH IN THEIR DARKNESS IF I DID NOT BELIEVE THAT THEY DESERVED IT ALAIN SON OF CHRISTOPHER.** _

_"And we're the torch."_

_The voice vanished and he knew it was true. And that's when he saw it, there on the dusty planes of jericho - and knew that there would be more then just Roland to weep. And indeed, that there would be those who would go on, stronger, from his sacrifice.  
(A man must earn his blood.)_

He could not relate that to Roland, ever. For like his mother he kept his dream close to his heart. The closest he came was just at that moment. The smoke and fire of battle. Gripping his friend's shoulder.

"It'll turn out all right." on more levels of the tower then we will ever know.

And at his death, he flew again and saw those that his death had made stronger and knew that he had done well.  



End file.
